A retired pharmacist is suing his GP neighbour for more than £1.5million over
claims he lost his life savings in "risk-free" Asian land deal.

Amarjit Singh Banwaitt claims he put £885,000 from the sale of his pharmacy business into a Cambodian land venture at the behest of his next-door neighbour and "very good friend" Dr Mohammed Dewji.

His golfing partner lured him with promises of six-figure returns within six months, he alleges, but the deal collapsed and swallowed Mr Banwaitt's savings.

Mr Banwaitt is now suing the doctor at London’s High Court, claiming damages and interest totalling £1,520,000.

His barrister, Edmund Cullen QC, said he was offered the chance to join others in buying 400 hectares in Cambodia's Koh Kang province for around £9million in July, 2008.

Dr Dewji is alleged to have claimed a French hotel chain was "locked into" an agreement to buy the land from them for almost £14 million within six months, for a leisure project which had been endorsed by the Cambodian prime minister.

Mr Banwaitt says he was "sucked into" the deal by a guaranteed return of at least 38 per cent on his investment by December, 2008.

"He came to me for help because they were short of funds - the deal was about to be concluded, so I was trying to help him," Mr Banwaitt told the court.

"The way he put it to me, absolutely everything was in place. There was no risk, or certainly very little risk."

However, the enterprise crumbled in December 2008, when it emerged that a Cambodian intermediary had defrauded them of more than £5 million, said Mr Cullen.

Mr Banwaitt claims the money was a loan and he was tricked into handing it over by “misrepresentation or non-disclosure”.

Dr Dewji denies any wrongdoing, pointing out that he ploughed more than a million into the venture and is as much a victim of the Cambodian fraudster as Mr Banwaitt.

He insists he made no guarantess to his neighbour, who he had known since 1990 and with whom he regularly played golf at the Woburn Golf Club, before he paid over the cash in three instalments in July 2008.

Stephen Lloyd, for Mr Dewji, claimed Mr Banwaitt had "asked to be included" in the venture and had "volunteered" to invest his money.

"You knew the risks. Cambodia is a risky country to do business in... You described it as a 'dodgy country'."

Dr Dewji, is engaged in court action in Cambodia in a bid to recover investors' money.